Mayor may have pivotal influence

Mayor Julian Castro, right, holding his daughter, Carina, 3, and his brother, Joaquin Castro, left, greet supporters upon their arrival at the send-off party for their trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julian Castro kisses his wife, Erica, with their daughter, Carina, 3, as his brother, Joaquin Castro, right, embraces Father Jimmy Drennan during the send-off party for their trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Louis Harrison, 8, center, waits to get autographs from Mayor Julián Castro, and his brother, Joaquín Castro, right, during the send-off party for their trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julián Castro poses for a photograph with his cake during the send-off party for his trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julián Castro with his wife, Erica, and their daughter, Carina, 3, bow their heads in prayer during the send-off party for their trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julian Castro is embraced by supporters during the send-off party for his trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julian Castro, right, holding his daughter, Carina, 3, and his brother, Joaquin Castro, left, greet supporters upon their arrival at the send-off party for their trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julián Castro sees the cake for the send-off party for his trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julian Castro, holding his daughter, Carina, 3, is surrounded by supporters at the send-off party for his trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julian Castro, center, stands with his wife, Erica Castro, their daughter, Carina, 3, and his brother, Joaquin Castro, right, on stage during the send-off party for their trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Carina Castro, 3, holds onto her father, Mayor Julian Castro, as he is surrounded by supporters at the send-off party for his trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Choco Meza, left, introduces the Castro family including Mayor Julian Castro, center, his wife, Erica Castro, their daughter, Carina, 3, and his brother, Joaquin Castro, right, during the send-off party for their trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julian Castro, right, holds his daughter, Carina, 3, as he greets supporters upon his arrival at the send-off party for his trip to the Democratic National Convention at the St. Paul Community Center in San Antonio on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

"And you're going to be a Democrat when you grow up," Bobbie Ducan, right, a delegate from Odessa, says to Brandy Ruiz, 9, of San Antonio, after Ruiz posed for a photo with Mayor Julián Castro, center, and his brother, Joaquín Castro, left, as they wait to board their plane for Charlotte, NC and the Democratic National Convention at the San Antonio International Airport on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julián Castro, center, is wished good luck as he boards his flight to Charlotte, NC for the Democratic National Convention at the San Antonio International Airport on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julián Castro goes over his speech on his flight to Charlotte, NC, for the Democratic National Convention on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Mayor Julián Castro, center, and his brother, Joaquín Castro, left, are greeted upon their arrival in Charlotte, NC, for the Democratic National Convention on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julián Castro, center, and his brother, Joaquín Castro, left, are greeted upon their arrival in Charlotte, NC, for the Democratic National Convention on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julián Castro, right, and his brother, Joaquín Castro, left, are greeted upon their arrival in Charlotte, NC, for the Democratic National Convention on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julián Castro, right, and his brother, Joaquín Castro, left, are escorted by security to the baggage claim upon their arrival in Charlotte, NC, for the Democratic National Convention on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

Photo By Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News

Mayor Julián Castro, left, and his brother, Joaquín Castro, right, wait for their luggage upon their arrival in Charlotte, NC, for the Democratic National Convention on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012.

As President Barack Obama prepared in July to visit San Antonio, expecting to speak to a few hundred supporters at a local hotel, he still had not decided who to tap for the critical keynote address at the Democratic National Convention this week in Charlotte, N.C.

On his short list was Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor and fiery architect of financial regulatory reform who's running in the Massachusetts Senate race.

Mayor Julián Castro also was an option. Months earlier, the Obama campaign had solicited video recordings of speeches by Castro and his twin, Joaquín.

Meanwhile the event for Obama in San Antonio, where Hispanics account for 63 percent of the population, was ballooning. Buoyed by a turnout of more than 1,000 supporters, organizers moved it to the city's largest ballroom.

By the time he left, Obama had raised more than $1 million, more cash than any Democratic candidate had collected here before.

Obama made his decision about a week later.

Julián Castro, the 37-year-old Hispanic mayor of the nation's seventh-largest city, would deliver the keynote address. It will be his introduction to a national audience and an opportunity to persuade an economically battered nation to vote for Obama in November.

“A few weeks ago, I got a call from the campaign manager of the Obama campaign, Jim Messina,” Castro told a homegrown crowd coursing with excitement Saturday. “He said, ‘This is Jim Messina from the Obama campaign, and I'm calling on behalf of the president to ask if you'd like to deliver the keynote address at the convention.'

“And of course, I said, ‘Yes.' I didn't want to hold him off.”

While Castro's acceptance was instantaneous, the decision to select a Latino for the speech that Obama made in 2004 was more than a year in the making.

And what a difference a year can make. Until this summer, disappointment in Obama was a metastasizing emotion among Latinos, two-thirds of whom traditionally vote Democratic.

One reason: In an economy straining to recover, many Hispanics have felt the recession more acutely than others. In Texas, the Hispanic community already struggles with lower income and educational attainment, the result of low wages and thin public services.

At the same time, Obama's 2008 campaign promise to find a path to legal status for illegal immigrant students was slipping into fantasy.

In 2010, the so-called DREAM Act was blocked by Republicans in the Senate.

And the federal government was prosecuting a record number of deportations despite a program designed to shift enforcement away from illegal immigrants who pose no security threat.

Latino and Democratic leaders across the country were raising alarms: Hispanics were suffering, and Obama was alienating voters who could prove pivotal for his re-election.

Then, in June, the president upended the narrative on immigration reform. In a major policy shift, he ended the threat of deportation for at least 800,000 immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally when they were children.

One month later, he selected Castro as the keynote speaker.

The Republican Party, of course, is clinging to whatever shred of the Hispanic vote it has preserved since the primary debates, when Mitt Romney declared his preference for “self-deportation.”

“What they argue is that America holds out to Hispanics exactly what it holds out to everybody else, and that is the American dream,” says Cal Jillson, a professor of political science at Southern Methodist University. “The Republican argument is a colorblind argument, that the American dream is held out to every American that's willing to work for it, and I think lots of Hispanics wonder whether or not that's exactly true.”

As with most sweeping platitudes, it's not.

Consider the GOP-led Texas Legislature, which was far from colorblind in its passage of redistricting maps and a voter ID law. In both cases, Washington courts last week ruled the laws discriminatory toward minorities.

And from this Lone Star reality, a young and rising star in the Democratic Party will step Tuesday night onto the national stage.

Whether Julián Castro conjures an iconic presence, capping Obama's 11th-hour effort to improve the lot of Latinos, is a question that could prove critical for the president's re-election.

After all, the Hispanic population is booming.

At the same time, the number of Hispanic voters is slipping; from 2008 to 2010, those registered fell by 700,000. And the electoral landscape is shifting: Southwestern states, highly populated by Mexican Americans, are becoming more competitive.

“Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and potentially Arizona are becoming the new regional battleground,” says Richard Murray, a political science professor at the University of Houston.

Will Hispanics turn out this year for Obama? A strong voice from San Antonio could go a long way toward securing that.